Tena Dailey (left) and Mickala Guliford are pictured in 2016 mugshots. Both workers were charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating a substantial risk. (Handout)

It was supposed to be a special day, but instead a 4-year-old’s birthday turned into a day care nightmare that left him with a black eye.

He was pummeled when two workers at the Adventure Learning Center in St. Louis, Mo., allegedly instigated 35 minutes of fighting between 3- and 4-year-olds in aiming to entertain the kids when the facility’s heater broke in 2016, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

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“He doesn’t understand why his friends were fighting him,” mother Nicole Merseal told the local news station. “He got beat up by his best friend. And it was on his fourth birthday.”

While the workers were fired and arrested at the time for their alleged role in what they dubbed the “toddler fight club,” they were not prosecuted.

That wasn’t enough for Merseal, who recently shared video of the incident that was shot by her 10-year-old son, who was in the next room and saw his little brother crying after being forced to participate in three fights.

More footage was captured on a surveillance camera. Merseal is suing the center, and state prosecutors have reopened the case.

On Monday, Mickala Guliford, 28, and Tena N. Dailey, 22, were charged with first-degree endangering the welfare of a child creating a substantial risk, KPLR/Fox2Now reported. They’re scheduled to appear in court on Dec. 3, almost two years to the day since the two “encouraged and directed the children to engage in fistfights with each other,” court documents quoted by the St. Post-Dispatch say.

The video shows small children, outfitted with big foam “hulk hands,” rolling around on the floor pounding each other. One child sits to the side, wiping his eyes. One of the teachers is jumping up and down, the other egging them on.

The St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office told KPLR last week that it would reopen the investigation, and the Missouri Department of Social Services has also been in touch with Merseal.

The teachers have not commented to the media.

“I am so very thankful that my 10-year-old realized that it was wrong,” Merseal told KPLR of her son’s quick thinking in recording the fight and texting it to her.

But the fallout continues. As they drove to a new day care center after the incident, she said, “He asked me in the car if they were gonna make him fight.”